WAKEFIELD, GILBERT ( 1756-1801 ) . An English classical scholar, born at Nottingham. At the age of twenty he graduated from Jesus College, Cambridge. In 1773 he was ordained a deacon in the Church of England, but after hold ing for a brief time two euracies, he gave up his profession owing to his inability to subscribe to the doctrine of the Trinity. Be turned to teach ing for support, becoming classical tutor in War rington Academy (1779-831. and in the dis senting college at hackney (1790-91). Resign ing this position on account of his objection to public worship (elaborated in An Enquiry into the Expediency and Propriety of Public or Social Worship, 1791). lie devoted the rest of his life to study and controversy. lie wrote a reply to Paine's Age of Reason (1794). crossed swords with Poison (q.v.). and was imprisoned for two years (1799-1801) in Dorchester jail for seditious libel contained in a violent nevi,/ to Bishop Wat son's Address to the People of Great Britain.
As an ardent sympathizer with the French Revo lution, be looked forward with enthusiasm to the expected. invasion from France. Wakefield's scholarship is well represented by a critical edi tion of Lucretius (3 vols.. 1796-99), and Silva Critiea (1789-95)• an attempt to illustrate the Scriptures "by light borrowed from the philology of Greece and Rome." Among other works are a translation of the New Testament (1792). a group of Greek tragedies edited under the title of Tragerdiarum Delectus (1794), editions of Vergil's Georyira (1785), of Horace (1794), Mosehus (1795), ft treatise on Greek metres called Noetes Carceraria. (1801). controversial tracts pertaining to polities and religion, and an autobiography under the title of Memoirs.